Progressives Express Anger at Kaine Selection

Bernie Sanders supporters and other liberal Democrats are voicing their frustration with Hillary Clinton's decision to choose Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine as her running mate, the Washington Post reports.

Norman Solomon, "coordinator of a group billing itself as the Bernie Delegates Network" described Kaine as "a loyal servant of oligarchy," the Post reports.

"If Clinton has reached out to Bernie supporters, it appears that she has done so to stick triangulating thumbs in their eyes," Solomon said.

Winnie Wong, an Occupy Wall Street activist who founded an organization called People for Bernie, dismissed the selection as "unsurprising and predictable," the Post reports.

"It shows a woeful disregard to the progressives who fought so hard this year to create conditions for transformational change this country desperately needs," Wong said. "Team Clinton did the math on this horse race and they are betting on Tim Kaine to court those white male moderate/Indy voters who won't vote for her. I doubt they can be moved."

Kaine's support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal also drew fire from those who thought the Clinton campaign needed to move in another direction.

"It's now more important than ever that Hillary Clinton run an aggressive campaign on core economic ideas like expanding Social Security, debt-free college, Wall Street reform, and yes, stopping the TPP," Stephanie Taylor, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee said.

"It's the best way to unite the Democratic Party and stop Republicans from winning over swing voters on bread-and-butter issues."

A June article in Politico Magazine titled "The Left's Beef With Tim Kaine" further revealed disenchantment with the Virginian.

"An establishment Wall Street Democrat like Tim Kaine … will do nothing but confirm to progressives she's learned nothing from this primary," Jordan Chariton of the Sanders-supporting online talk show "The Young Turks" told the website.

Katie Halper, host of a radio show for New York station WBAI, similarly pulled no punches in her remarks to Politico.

"Picking Kaine, a centrist, DLC [Democratic Leadership Council] Democrat, who happens to have some scary positions on abortion and the deficit, would just confirm that Clinton is the triangulating, centrist, DLC Democrat who many Sanders supporters have claimed her to be," Halper said.

"It would send a message that she's not even pretending to pander to us, which is both refreshingly honest and alarming."

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